How Many Children?

[SageDad]

The number that's being floated around a lot lately is 2800 children.  2800 American children are currently being illegally held in foreign countries.  This is an atrociously high number by any measure but it makes me sick for a wholly different reason.  I believe it to be an extremely low estimate.

There are groups within the US government that consistently downplay the impact of this issue to avoid it causing diplomatic problems between our "friends" and "allies".  Protecting countries like Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Germany, Austria, Sweden and Switzerland and others who have allowed, and in some cases continue to allow, their citizens to abduct American children and retain them within their borders.  Unfortunately these same groups that have a vested interest in downplaying the impact of international child abduction have been placed in charge of returning American children, assisting the "left behind parents" of those chidren and reporting statistics on the problem to Congress.

According to the State Dept's own annual report for 2008 over 1600 children were internationally abducted in that year.  During the same year only 361 were returned.  Just looking at the State Dept's own numbers for 2008 makes 2800 seem low if, in that year alone, 1300 more children were kidnapped than were returned.  That's without even considering the fact that many cases are never reported to the State Dept. because local law enforcement is often completely ignorant about the Hague Convention or the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act of 1993.

Speaking of the IPKCA of '93, according to an August 31, 1998 newspaper article in the Ventura County Star, Nancy Nayak, who was the Assistant Director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, quoted the following, “In 1993, case workers estimated about 10,000 children were abducted in the United States and taken abroad in parental abductions. While the exact numbers can not be determined today, experts acknowledge that it is significantly higher. Also since 1993, only 10 arrest warrants have been filed for these parents, and only one has been successfully prosecuted.”   1993 was a long time ago and all the children that had been abducted at that time have since become adults.  Nonetheless every indicator known shows that the severity of this problem is increasing, not decreasing.  Part of resolving this problem is understanding it.  Part of understanding the problem is just being able to understand how big it is.  There are 3 groups that should be able to provide these numbers.

1) The US State Dept -  DoS is the current provider of the 2800 number and the agency that has repeatedly put diplomacy and other bi-national agreements ahead of abducted children -- so far ahead that they may as well have ignored them altogether.  They aggressively "close" cases when foreign countries deny returning children in mis-interpretations of the Hague Convention as well as close them for inactivity.  Just because a foreign judge said an abducted child couldn't return to a father while the mother was breastfeeding or something similiar doesn't justify closing the case.  Likewise they shouldn't close cases because foreign law enforcement can't locate the children.  Cases should remain open until children come home or become adults.

2) The NCMEC - Many cases are not reported to the NCMEC but they should have some fairly accurate numbers.  Unfortunately I haven't seen them comment on these numbers for quite some time.

3) The FBI - The FBI maintains the NCIC missing persons database.  In theory, and legally, internationally abducted children should be listed in here automatically, however, since it is up to local law enforcement to enter children into it many parents have reported problems with getting police officers to do so if the child is with a parent.  My own experience was to have the police officer tell me "Well, you know your son's in Mexico right?  ... well then he's not missing".  I had to fight with them repeatedly and hire a lawyer to even get my son listed as a "missing person".  Nonetheless the FBI would be another good source for numbers on internationally kidnapped children except they don't break down their reported numbers in terms of children that are suspected to be in foreign countries.

As part of our efforts to get children stolen across international borders returned home we should pressure the above agencies to make available detailed statistics on internationally abducted children.

[kim in socal]

Carlos,
You make some great points here.
All I know for sure is that our BSH list of Left Behind Parents in growing by the day! It's hard to comprehend that each one of the 2,800+ cases represents real people and real families and is not just a number. Much more work to do!

[forthelost]

Also, not all international abductions are known as such. If you look on NCMEC, many cases have multiple possible destinations, and it's not known for certain if they are out of the country or not.

[Sashia]

Carlos,
You make some great points here.
All I know for sure is that our BSH list of Left Behind Parents in growing by the day! It's hard to comprehend that each one of the 2,800+ cases represents real people and real families and is not just a number. Much more work to do!

 
I really think an expose on how many children are disappearing, why they never come home, and who's children are at risk, with a brief glance or mention of as many of the cases that can be packed in, so that individual cases aren't the focus of the show.
 
What are the chances for America's Most Wanted to do a feature story and spend a large amt. of time on what the State Dept, and the OCS are NOT doing and on what we all need to do to begin to solve these cases.. I know he's done spots on parentally abducted kids that were endangered. But what about the ones who are "just"  suffering the emotional abuse and distress that Sean suffered? Or do you think John Walsh doesn't want to anger the State Dept, because in order to do the story justice, the guilty must hang.

[KarlHindle]

What are the chances for America's Most Wanted to do a feature story and spend a large amt. of time on what the State Dept, and the OCS are NOT doing and on what we all need to do to begin to solve these cases.. I know he's done spots on parentally abducted kids that were endangered.

I think the odds of AMV doing anything are slim to nil - Walsh is only interested in stranger abductions not this - and I think there is a tie-in with the NCMEC who until last year were funded by OCI as part of the sub-contracting arrangement to handle incoming cases.

Carlos hits the nail on the head - we don't know how many cases there are, outgoing and incoming - but there is no reason why we should not know.

The numbers get massaged when OCI/NCMEC is looking for more budget - more cases = more money; but what the true numbers are is anyone's guess but downplayed when it comes to minimizing diplomatic ramifications.

This heinous balancing act is why we have so much fudge with the numbers - the State Department knows we can do simple arithmetic and the numbers simply do not add up.

Carlos is again right - the true numbers are probably much higher than any of those quoted for the reasons he states.

I may be sounding like a stuck record but as a foreigner, I look at the US from the other side of the looking-glass but this may shake you:

The UK reports 50% return rate from the US (Prof. Nigel Low of Cardiff Law School reports 52% generally) - these are HC's only

What is the factor between HC and non-HC's - as many again?  More?  HC cases are reported variously as only being the tip of the iceberg so a factor of 1:1 is probably conservative:

100 abductions to the US
50 are HC
50 are non-HC (and will be dealt with by US family law - a return is highly unlikely)
50% of that 50 HC are returned = 25
25 out of 100
so, 1 in 4 abductions result in a return.

25% return rate compared to the 90% quoted by OCI and NCMEC - now do you see why other countries and foreign parents view the US with a degree of sceptism and pessimism?

Of course, perform the analysis in reverse and the return rates TO the US look just as increasingly miserable which brings us neatly back to Carlos' points - no numbers mean we cannot quantify the true scope of the problem BUT more importantly, no-one can quantify the performance of OCI et al in getting kids returned, and that, I feel, is at the crux of this fudging along with diplomatic expediency.

[Sashia]

BUT more importantly, no-one can quantify the performance of OCI et al in getting kids returned, and that, I feel, is at the crux of this fudging along with diplomatic expediency.

Boy, on day like today, with ice and sleet in florida, insead of braving the frost, I'd love to have a job that doesn't require me to be accountable for anything to anyone, but still pays me because I'm on the payroll and then asks ME how I think I'm doing!!! Think I'd roll in just in time for lunch in front of the fireplace.

[hatufim.org]

As part of our efforts to get children stolen across international borders returned home we should pressure the above agencies to make available detailed statistics on internationally abducted children.

Yes, you are 100% correct. I have tried to obtain these numbers from ALL responsible agencies but they have ALL refused to provide such information. There are various reasons that ALL these government agencies have in downplaying and ignoring the number of parental abduction cases. Most parental abduction cases are ignored by the agencies who are supposed to protect our children.
 
According to various sources the average number of parental abduction cases in the USA is somewhere between 1,000 to 3,000 children per day!!! A small percentage of those children are abducted internationally. Over 50% of cases are resolved in less than a week, and about 80% of cases are resolved in less than a month.
 
Most of the cases who are resolved in less than a month come to a quick conclusion because the parents of the abducting parent, who is usually the children's mother, simply tell her to stop acting like that and to return the children immediately. Civil courts and law enforcement usually do not resolve any parental abduction cases, specially if the mother is the abductor. Men and women are obviusly treated very differently in these type of cases under the misguided perception that a woman can do whatever she wants to her children.
 
The USA is by far the country in the world with the most parental abductions. Coincidentally, Brazil is number 2. Nevertheless, Brazil is much better at enforcing it's parental abduction laws, which are almost identical to the parental abduction laws in the USA. If someone abducts a child from Brazil to another country, criminal charges will be immediately filed against the abducting parent. Also, the BCA will move very fast and make great efforts to get the abducted children back to Brazil in cases where the children are abducted to a Hague convention country. This comes in stark contrast to the response of the US State Dept, who couldn't care less about all the children abducted from the USA to other countries.
 
As comparison to the importance of this issue in other countries, a few years ago the New Zeland government declared the issue of parental abductions a national emergency when in a 1 year period they had a total of 200 parental abduction cases. In the USA you can easily get 200 cases in less than 2 hours, and no one seems to care!!!
 
No wonder no one wants to tell us how many children are abducted in the USA... And the problem is simply getting worse... It seems that the approach some of these agencies have taken is that if they ignore the abductions long enough, the parents of the abducted children will simply stop bothering them... Can the USA be considered a safe place for children?

[Wendy]

As a viewer I would really, REALLY like to see Dateline do a show on parental child abduction in general. I'd like to see a line-up of all the LBP's so that there are faces put to this horrible situation.  The general public needs to be aware that this is a serious situation that must not be tolerated any longer.  Even if they could put a call out to all LBP's to group together here on BSH...what a formiddible group of people we would have to affect change.  
 
I think it's pathetic that an organization like the DOS is reporting false numbers.  I mean really...what happened to an office doing what it's been mandated to do!? I mean who wins when they do this?  I just don't get it.

[SageDad]

As a viewer I would really, REALLY like to see Dateline do a show on parental child abduction in general. I'd like to see a line-up of all the LBP's so that there are faces put to this horrible situation.  The general public needs to be aware that this is a serious situation that must not be tolerated any longer.  Even if they could put a call out to all LBP's to group together here on BSH...what a formiddible group of people we would have to affect change.  
 
I think it's pathetic that an organization like the DOS is reporting false numbers.  I mean really...what happened to an office doing what it's been mandated to do!? I mean who wins when they do this?  I just don't get it.

I'm not so sure that the DoS is not doing exactly what they've been mandated to do and that's the real rub.  They are an organization dedicated to diplomacy and fostering good diplomatic relations.  They handle each abduction case with an eye to avoid diplomatic friction and waves.  Sometimes the DoS works wonders on behalf of some parents, particularly mothers who have had their child abducted by father's with a history of abuse.  I read about cases where Federal warrants are issues in hours and parentally kidnapped children are recovered from Mexico in days (these cases don't mention the Hague Convention).  Is it really that the DoS just cares more about these kids or mothers or rather that such mother's have a significantly easier time at getting media coverage, including national media coverage and converting this "custody spat" into an international scandal like the Goldman case?  If you view the DoS's actions from the context that their mandate is, specifically, to promote diplomacy (rather than recover children) there is no disconnect between the way they differentiate between going the extra mile for certain cases and doing nothing for other cases.  A father fighting for a child in Latin America faces a family law system that very strongly favors the mother.  Not supporting such a father increases the likelihood that they'll give up on having their child returned early on which serves to avoid future scandals such as where father's win return orders that are never enforced or spend years and fortunes fighting for a justice that never comes.

[Wendy]

I'm not so sure that the DoS is not doing exactly what they've been mandated to do and that's the real rub. They are an organization dedicated to diplomacy and fostering good diplomatic relations. They handle each abduction case with an eye to avoid diplomatic friction and waves. Sometimes the DoS works wonders on behalf of some parents, particularly mothers who have had their child abducted by father's with a history of abuse. I read about cases where Federal warrants are issues in hours and parentally kidnapped children are recovered from Mexico in days (these cases don't mention the Hague Convention). Is it really that the DoS just cares more about these kids or mothers or rather that such mother's have a significantly easier time at getting media coverage, including national media coverage and converting this "custody spat" into an international scandal like the Goldman case? If you view the DoS's actions from the context that their mandate is, specifically, to promote diplomacy (rather than recover children) there is no disconnect between the way they differentiate between going the extra mile for certain cases and doing nothing for other cases. A father fighting for a child in Latin America faces a family law system that very strongly favors the mother. Not supporting such a father increases the likelihood that they'll give up on having their child returned early on which serves to avoid future scandals such as where father's win return orders that are never enforced or spend years and fortunes fighting for a justice that never comes.

 
All the more reason why HR 3240 is important then...what's needed is a separate office dealing with int'l child abductions that doesn't feel compelled to be concerned about diplomatic relations and places importance on abducted children, not on preserving international "relationships" between countries.

[Celita]

I think the big problem that the left behind father/mother has to face are : support, emotional, language (yes, when the child is in  another country it's a big obstacle)and  financial issues. It's important to get the midia attention and get the public involved . Like in  racing cars the pilot run following the hollow(tail) of the car in front of him (so he gets speed ) and he takes full  advantage of that. He aprouches of the tail in order to gain speed .What I want to say is David opened opportunity and maybe someone can get his  "momentum" (power residing in a moving object)...and don't wait to cool down.